What do twelve Special Forces operators and several hundred NGO
(non-governmental organization) workers have in common? It’s simple, both groups
can get about the same amount of work done in a foreign country. Actually,
that’s being too generous to the NGOs. The Special Forces do their good works a
lot more quickly, and at much less cost.

The NGOs, as they have taken
over the delivery of foreign aid during the last half century, have also become
part of the problems they are trying to treat. Despite their description as
“non-profits” and “relief workers,” the NGOs live from contract to contract.
While “non-profit,” they are not “non-revenue.” They have to bring in contracts
to take care of their payroll and expenses. This has become an issue in some of
the countries where NGOs operate. The locals have been noticing how much of the
aid money given to their country is going through the NGOs, and how the NGOs use
a lot of it to pay NGO expenses, and generally distribute the aid as they feel
best, without a lot of consulting with the locals. But a major reason so many
donor nations prefer to give aid via NGOs is that it cuts down on corruption. In
too many poor countries getting emergency aid, local officials are quick to
divert aid to personal use.

Special Forces teams work a lot cheaper than
NGOs, and are better able to work with the locals. Many of the Special Forces
operators speak the local languages, and understand the local customs. Moreover,
the Special Forces are armed. This helps deal with a common problem in disaster
relief; how do you deal with the armed thugs you run across. Some are local
police or army, but most are bandits, rebels or just desperate, armed,
civilians. The NGOs have to back off, and end up either providing support for
the gunmen, or getting out of the area. Special Forces simply scare off or kill
the gunmen, which is what Special Forces are trained to
do.

Unfortunately, you’re not going to have many Special Forces available
to run relief operations. There are only about 4,000 Special Forces troops, and
they are currently chasing down terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The NGOs are basically an outsourcing of government foreign aid operations. The
NGOs are an outgrowth of centuries old religious relief groups. The Red Cross
and anti-slavery groups were the first modern NGOs to appear, in the 19th
century. Since World War II, there has been an explosion in the formation of new
NGO organizations. Thousands have appeared, driven by a more generous public,
and a growing number of idealistic men and women willing to work, in dangerous
places, to do what task the NGO dedicated itself to. Over the last few decades,
governments realized that it was more efficient to have NGOs handle disaster
relief, and foreign aid in general, rather than having government employees do
it.

But increasingly, the NGO employees are becoming like the civil
servants they have replaced. Part of it is the passage of time. While many NGO
employees are idealistic young people who do it for a few years, others have
made a career of it. The NGOs have become more bureaucratic, and political.
These days, most NGOs tend to have a foreign policy, and they often group
together to pressure governments to do things the NGOs feel comfortable with.
This has increasingly brought NGOs into conflict with the governments and donors
who supply the money, and locals who are supposed to be benefiting from
it.

There’s no easy solution to these problems. The NGOs are too
effective at what they do, especially since they make use of large numbers of
“temps,” and can expand and contract their workforce quickly and with far fewer
problems than can a government. Natural and man-made disasters aren’t
predictable, so the NGOs have a major advantage with their flexibility. However,
the political differences between NGOs and governments may lead to the return of
government personnel taking back more of the work in distributing aid. And after
the war on terror is over, the Special Forces may end up doing more in this area
as well.

GREAT topic -- it's long overdue for discussion.
With all due respect, though, it seems unreasonable to compare Green Berets to NGO workers. Each Green Beret takes years to train and probably costs millions over his career. Their numbers are minuscule. Of COURSE they're going to be extremely effective at what they do, but they are far too scarce and far too valuable to use for much humanitarian relief work.
The U.S. military has other troops who play a role in disaster relief (engineers, medical, and civil affairs soldiers come to mind). While these troops can be scarce, they're more available than SF soldiers. It's probably better to compare the pros and cons of using these folks more for disaster relief.